As a new sponsor, V.O. will help the Nuon Solar Team take full advantage of its intellectual property. With fifteen years of experience, the team uses the most innovative technology in the solar racing car Nuna 8 that is currently being built.
V.O. is to help the Nuon Solar Team in recording the knowledge on driving a car using solar power. “The knowledge that has been built up over the years can be applied more intelligently”, says Bernard Ledeboer of V.O. and specialist in intellectual property. The team aims to benefit in this way from the experience it has acquired.
“It’s all about dealing with intellectual property in a conscious and strategic manner”, according to Ledeboer. He is himself a graduate of Delft University of Technology, and explains, “The solar racing team changes every other year. This means that new students are constantly involved. It is important that it is clear who owns the knowledge and in which ways it is applied. This is because all sorts of innovations are developed over the years, and these have a commercial value that the team can cash in on. The team can cash in on this value. The question is who profits from it, and in which way. V.O. is helping the team find the answer.”
Nuon Solar Team’s solar car is redesigned every year and built by hand. This means that the students are constantly innovating and working with technologies and materials that can, for example, appear in the cars of the future. “It is above all an investment in the future, so that students of the Nuon Solar Team can continue to innovate as global leaders”, says Ledeboer.
Nuon Solar Team’s team leader Mark Hupkens welcomes the collaboration with the new sponsor. “We often get requests from organisations that want to work with us. And that’s great, of course, but we’re working with expensive machines and materials which our sponsors have contributed a great deal towards in the past years. As the Nuon Solar Team, we can draw on the fifteen years’ experience of former team members. The question is whether this expertise should be given to companies all over the world for free, and with nothing in return. In any case, the first step involves thinking about it and putting things down on record. V.O. Patents & Trademarks are helping us do this, and we’re extremely happy about that.”
